This Is Your Life
by Ninja Stealth Noise
Summary: Songfic to Switchfoot's 'This Is Your Life'. Norrington returns to his rightful place and finds solace - and uncertainty - in the man who put him there. Beckington slash, post-DMC. On the very verge of M.


This Is Your Life

Is Norrington's life everything he dreamed that it would be? With Beckett at his side, he thinks so. Songfic with "This Is Your Life" by Switchfoot.

_Yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead  
Yesterday is a promise that you've broken  
Don't close your eyes, don't close your eyes  
This is your life and today is all you've got now  
Yeah, and today is all you'll ever have  
Don't close your eyes  
Don't close your eyes_

Right there, right then, it was as if the Norrington of last year had never existed. His gold brocade glinted once again and his powdered wig was back in its rightful place. At least, it would have been if he was anywhere but where he was. The cool darkness of his lover's sleeping quarters was so fitting: who else was as cold and dark as Lord Cutler Beckett? Norrington's gaze raked over his companion's high forehead, the closed eyelids, two full lips that made him think of a cupid's bow. So beautiful, yet unimaginably hideous inside. Why did he love this man? Why was each night a proclamation of the adoration he felt, a release of all the emotion that otherwise would cause him to explode? The questions sailed through his head, propelled by possible answers and yet more inquiries. That is, until his Lord lazily opened his eyes and regarded the world around him with new eyes. His stare fell on his bedfellow last, as if he had forgotten he was there.

"Hello Admiral."

And in that flat and cultured tone, Norrington's memory raced back on a hundred frothing waves. The past was _his_ past, _his_ failure. His life was a maelstrom until…until…

Yes, that was why he loved Beckett. He loved this calculating, disdainful, wonderful man because he had returned to him all that he had lost. Beckett had closed Norrington's eyes on the past.__

This is your life, are you who you want to be  
This is your life, are you who you want to be  
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be  
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose  


Yet again they lay in the damp, tousled sheets of Beckett's bed, tangled in each other and in the heaviness of their quenched lust. Beckett was calm as ever after their frantic love-making, tracing his company's symbol on Norrington's naked stomach. Norrington's chest rose and fell rapidly as he half-panted, half-laughed. Why he was laughing, he didn't know.

"Admiral," Norrington's head turned at the sound of his title. All of a sudden Beckett was pacing the floor, reading a report submitted by none other than Commodore Gillette that very morning.

"A part of the island has been harboring pirates and resisting the new tax levy. Take a squadron of men and silence the matter."

"N-now?" Norrington was still breathing heavily and his arousal was still clear to the eye. Beckett looked at him in that cold manner of his. Of course he meant now. The other man sighed and began to wash himself using the small basin Beckett kept in his quarters. To his surprise, a hand stole the sponge from his grasp and began to massage his back with it. The dirt that caked his skin the first time he set foot in Beckett's office felt like it was being washed off all over again by Beckett's smooth lips which were currently pressing themselves against the back of his ear and the curve of his neck. Norrington's head involuntarily fell back against his Lord's shoulder, his nose brushing the faux curl of Beckett's wig.

_Yesterday is a kid in the corner  
Yesterday is dead and over  
_

Sometimes Norrington wanted to stop in the mid-thrust and run back to the past, to Tortuga, maybe even to England. What would his late mother say if she knew about his new love? She would say: is this the life you want? A life at the mercy of a man that is as cold and unforgiving as the ocean that he rules? A life at this man's beck and call, all for a treat at the end of the day? For shame, James, for shame.

For it was shameful. When he bathed after he was with Beckett, he scrubbed so hard to rid himself of the shame he felt that his skin turned red. Even so, he always felt assuaged by the fingers of the man who had brought him such feelings as they cooled the ruddiness from his bare skin.

Mother was dead now, anyway, he thought. She would have nothing to say to him unless he imagined it.

_This is your life, are you who you want to be  
This is your life, are you who you want to be  
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be  
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose_

_Don't close your eyes  
Don't close your eyes  
Don't close your eyes_

_Don't close your eyes_

All the doubt he shed on his new –or should I say old- life was frowned upon by the new habits he had noticed he was developing. A smile flashed across his face when he thought of his Lord, along with a distinct clenching of his muscles, as if anticipating something. His work was no longer troublesome or tiring, as he was only a few feet away from Beckett at times.

He longed for those moments when he could be one with the man he loved in all ways, the man he despised in so many others. He found himself staring at Beckett's lips as the sophisticated words poured out of him, cutting anyone they were aimed at to the bone. He no longer cared whether Beckett loved him or not, whether he was simply a pawn like everyone else Beckett knew, he needed no reciprocation. All he needed was that man. __

This is your life are you who you want to be  
This is your life are you who you want to be

This is your life, are you who you want to be  
This is your life, are you who you want to be  
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed it would be  
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose…

For so long Norrington had dreamed of a wife, of children, and of a respectable life in the elite of society. His dreams had glinted, gold and silver cutlery, and felt like velvet and satin. For so long he thought he'd known what he wanted. His life was nearly complete. Beckett rid Norrington of all he had. He rid him of all he had, and gave him everything he needed. He no longer dreamed of treasure and the like. In fact, he rarely wanted to close his eyes on his Lord, and so barely dreamed at all. __

And you had everything to lose.

End. I just love Beckington, it's the only slash that I search for on this site. Review, please, I really want to see what you think of this one!


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